My personal feeling is that it will be good to have access at least to the unobtainable and never-printed works at virtually any price. And I think they know or believe that much of the initial readership will be a small but highly dedicated cadre of readers who feel as I do, and are marketing appropriately. As many commentators have observed over the years, Lafferty is the proverbial "caviar to the masses", and very few of his works ever sold well to the general public. As often happens to talented writers with a taste for the speculative, he fell between two bar stools: too literary for the genre fans, and too genre-"tainted" for the soi-disant literati.

My personal feeling is that it will be good to have access at least to the unobtainable and never-printed works at virtually any price. And I think they know or believe that much of the initial readership will be a small but highly dedicated cadre of readers who feel as I do, and are marketing appropriately. As many commentators have observed over the years, Lafferty is the proverbial "caviar to the masses", and very few of his works ever sold well to the general public. As often happens to talented writers with a taste for the speculative, he fell between two bar stools: too literary for the genre fans, and too genre-"tainted" for the soi-disant literati.

Yes, Mister owlcraft, the soi-distant tainted literati might snift. But to those who give a damn, our sweet Lafferty is a desirable hombre insightful. And as for me (and I speak for legions) the worth of Lafferty is in his understanding of reality and his desire to subliminally transfer the incongruous into stolid us. Or either transfer the incongruties into the outer ether.

That price is amazing: Amazon shows it for $76! Also note that the editions you buy from Centipede direct are (it says) "each signed by Michael Swanwick, John Pelan, and cover artist and designer Jacob McMurray". That $45 is a good deal for a cloth-bound book.

Yes, good observation! Despite my initial misgivings about the price and composition of this collection, and about the direction this whole project seems to be taking, I jumped on it and pre-ordered the first volume. Fingers crossed! Too bad they did not take a more sistematic approach to the selection of the stories for each volume. Have all of them been published before? I see a couple of titles I don't recognize right away.

An update on Lafferty status from the Centipede Press newsletter:"NOT TOO MUCH TO REPORT THIS TIME. Still waiting on Witch House, Brood of the Witch-Queen, and The Man Who Made Models. This last one, the R.A. Lafferty collection, is a strong selling title. As is Witch House. I should have Witch House and The Man Who Made Models in by mid December. Brood of the Witch-Queen will arrive this week, and we’ll have it up for order by the following Sunday. "

Yakushima wrote:Yes, good observation! Despite my initial misgivings about the price and composition of this collection, and about the direction this whole project seems to be taking, I jumped on it and pre-ordered the first volume. Fingers crossed! Too bad they did not take a more sistematic approach to the selection of the stories for each volume. Have all of them been published before? I see a couple of titles I don't recognize right away.

Centipede is only printing stories that have been previously published—the good thing is that this will bring together a lot of stories that are scattered pretty widely. Plans aren't yet set for the unpublished material; I've talked with the Locus folks about having one printed for the centennial celebrations at Worldcon/World Fantasy, and have some hopes that will go through.

According to latest update from Centipede Press, R.A. Lafferty "The Man With the Aura" (Volume 2 of The Collected Short Stories) will be shipping around mid-December. There is no pre-order page yet on the publisher's website. There was mentioning of John Pelan's illness in one of the Publisher's newsletter during this summer. I wonder if this unfortunate situation contributed to such a delay with the second volume.

The second volume of R.A.Lafferty collection is up for ordering on the publisher's website at just $45 (much better than Amazon's pre-order pricing). I got an update from Centipede Press yesterday saying that they start shipping this book on Monday!Details of the second volume:

A quick note for those of you who bought numbered/signed copies of The Man Who Made Models --

If you have ordered (or are planning to buy) The Man with an Aura, you can send an email to Centipede Press asking them to give you the same number on that (and any subsequent volumes). The email address is jerad@centipedepress.com. I almost missed this announcement in their email newsletter, so I thought I'd pass it along.

David TateProfessor of Story Problems, emeritusRationalist with sombreroBaseballogist

What can I say? Beautiful book, wonderful stories. Many thanks to this website for making me aware of Lafferty, and to this forum for making me aware of this publication of his short fiction.

I eagerly await further announcements regarding the current revival of the man's work.

The title piece, by the way (The Man with the Aura), is a beauty. Does anyone know where this one was published before? It's the only story whose prior publication is not listed in the back of the volume.

Hmm. I personally reset that story's text for the Centipede edition—drawing on all the published editions as well as the manuscript—and definitely provided a publication history with it. Ah well. (Almost afraid to ask if it was typo-free...)

Lafferty's preferred title seems to have been "Tom O'Shanty's Aura," but the earlier title fit better the conceit of the series titles, obviously.

Book three is well underway, incidentally, though I don't have an absolutely firm ToC yet.

Another favorite of mine from this book - Anamnesis. What an utterly bizarre and hallucinatory tale. Lafferty at his strangest, most frustrating, and possibly most brilliant.

It occurs to me that the concept behind it - Anamnesis (in the Platonic sense - possibly the Catholic sense as well) - is a cornerstone of Lafferty's work. I'm currently reading Past Master, which, of course, lies at the opposite end of Lafferty's career from Anamnesis (and which is not overtly part of the Argo cosmology), but is full of subtle references to parallel, past, and repeated existences. I know that he went on record saying that all his stories are connected, and sometimes I honestly believe that was his intention from the start.

I reset the text for Anamnesis too, really glad you liked it! One of my favorites as well, and one of the single hardest Lafferty stories to collect.

No dates on the novels yet to my awareness, though there is every intention to see them all released eventually. The next project that will emerge is almost definitely the big Best Of volume, and there's been talk of releasing the best of the unpublished works as something along the lines of "Lafferty's Last Collection" or similar. Hoping to know more in a few months' time.